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T O P I C R E V I E W

Lev M

I have recently purchased a lot with four postcards in it. One of them caught my attention by the following text:

Colonel Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov, commander of Crew One for the Soyuz spaceship.

I have two explanation of this not quite correct statement:

It is about the Apollo-Soyuz mission but Apollo was not mentioned on the card.

The card was created for the Soyuz 11 mission (where Leonov was actually the commander of Crew One) but it was put on hold because of the tragedy. Later the number was removed and the card was issued.

What would the local experts say regarding the card? Thank you.

Neil DC

Looks like option one for Apollo-Soyuz, given that the date of the card is 1975, the year if the ASTP. Also he looks a bit older than the pics from the Voskhod era. I think I have seen similar B&W portraits from Kubasov and the American crew.

Apollo-Soyuz

I have done a little research on the above postcard. Card was published by a company called Planeta located in Moscow, The card illustrated was one of fourteen cards published which depicted the prime and backup astp crews of both the russian and american. 15,000 cards were published. All 14 cards were vertically oriented.

------------------John MaccoSpace Unit #1457

dom

I think it refers to the fact that there were two separate Soyuz spacecraft and crews for the ASTP mission.

If Leonov's rocket had failed at launch, another Soyuz would have been launched immediately with the second crew.

Apollo-Soyuz

dom- You are right. Russia allocated two Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicles to ASTP with a prime and backup crew for both spacecraft.